The Pop-Culture E-Zine
Whoa, gotta set aside about 14 minutes and watch this brief tour of the Nintendo Museum with none other than Shigeru Miyamoto!
The Nintendo Museum is scheduled to open on October 2nd, 2024, in Kyoto, Japan! This is one item we definitely want to cross off the bucket list!
source: Nintendo Of America
Nintendo enthusiasts have reason to celebrate as the highly anticipated Nintendo Museum in Kyoto, Japan, is set to open its doors this spring (or autumn if you like in the northern hemisphere).
Originally slated for a 2021 opening, the museum’s completion has been confirmed in a recent financial earnings report. The final preparations are underway, with an official grand opening expected later this year. The museum promises to be a landmark destination for fans of the iconic video game company.
This will be another venue to add to the already growing “This to do and see in Japan” bucket list! For more details, visit the TimeOut article here.
During Nintendo’s 83rd annual shareholders meeting, President and CEO Shuntaro Furukawa discussed the company’s plans for a seamless transition from the Switch to their upcoming but unannounced game console. Furukawa emphasized the importance of Nintendo Accounts in facilitating this generational shift.
Nintendo has previously acknowledged the significance of accounts in their future business strategies, as highlighted in a special report released at the end of 2021.
When asked by an investor about specific measures in place for the transition to a Switch successor, Furukawa acknowledged the challenge of transitioning customers from one console to another. He mentioned that in the past, the company had to rebuild its relationship with customers each time.
Furukawa highlighted that Nintendo Accounts, which have exceeded 290 million, are cross-platform and can be used for both console games and mobile apps. He concluded by assuring that Nintendo will strive to make the transition to their upcoming console as smooth as possible for customers.
Nintendo has been known for its delayed adoption of new technologies such as cloud saves and 4K gaming, and its online accounts have lagged behind. Unlike Microsoft and Sony, who have had persistent cross-generational accounts since the early 2000s, Nintendo has faced challenges in previous console transitions, like the complex process of transferring games from the Wii to the Wii U. It has been necessary for Nintendo to catch up for some time, and it’s encouraging to see that they are now recognizing this need.
story source: The Verge
Since last year’s Nintendo Gigaleak, aka: Data Leak (Ed: or more accurately, hacks that lead to the leak!) that brought attention to some Pokémon source code, 3DS debug ROMs as well as the full source code for the Nintendo Wii from the BroadOn’s servers (BroadOn worked with Nintendo on the Wii hardware and software), there has been further leaks emerging in the last week.
From the many recent mouth-watering leakage news (not looking at you Wii prototype games!), the major one that grabbed our attention was the Pokemon Pinball game that was slated for a 2006 release on the DS. As massive pinball fans, this game would have been right up our alley, especially when gaming on the go with the Nintendo DS’ touch and dual screens.
Considering the original Game Boy Color title became a cult classic, this one would have been well received. The game would’ve been developed by Fuse, best known for Super Mario Ball and Metroid Prime Pinball, so we are quite sure Pokemon Pinball on the DS would have been an absolute blast!
More news about the Nintendo data leak on Resetera
It is always a humbling experience when seeing these ‘best selling’ lists related to video games. This time, it is the franchises – the heavy lifters of their respective publisher’s bottom line.
No surprise who is on top, by a massive margin – Mario, Nintendo’s crown jewel. Mario has been a juggernaut franchise for decades! Any game containing the Italian plumber (formerly Jumpman) is almost a guarantee to make bank for Nintendo, from the Super Mario, Mario Kart, Mario Sports and Mario Party series, to Mario RPG! When looking at the list, Mario is in some good company with other massive Nintendo franchises, like the Wii simulation series and of course, The Legend of Zelda. The Wii series was a surprise, as we would have expected Donkey Kong or Metroid to be up there too.
Looking at the chart, you will notice a mixed bag of game franchises that started in the 80s, 90s, 2000s, with Minecraft being the sole representative for the 2010s! No wonder we keep seeing Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto games being made on new generation systems, they sell like hotcakes. Not content with being the biggest pop culture entity, Star Wars has done quite well in the video gaming realm too. Great to see Sega’s Sonic The Hedgehog up there and the many sports titles we have enjoyed (and still enjoy).
See any surprises?
(click to enlarge)
data source: Wikipedia
By: D.C. Cutler, U.S.A.
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is like the video game Alien 3, the game is far superior to the films that they are based on.
For a 2009 game, the graphics and gameplay are amazing. When you are playing as Optimus Prime or Bumblebee, the missions can seem rather repetitive, but it’s enjoyable. The graphics were criticised when the game was released. However, they still look impressive to me. I’ve never been a big stickler for graphics; if the gameplay is fun, I can overlook problems with the graphics. The online mode was praised by critics.
The plot of the game is that the Autobots try to hunt down the remaining Decepticons after the demise of their leader, Megatron. The Fallen is a new adversary, but the plot could’ve done without that added foe.
image source: Gaming Nexus
Of all the Michael Bay “Transformer” films, the second instalment, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” is the sloppiest and most annoying. The jive talking, little robots could be one of the most disgusting characters in recent cinema history. Who could watch that and think it wasn’t in poor taste and tone deaf? I’ve never thought that the film was a total waste like some. I think John Turturro is very funny in the movie, and some of the action scenes are impressive, if you can tell who’s fighting who. So much work went into the visual effects, too bad it didn’t have a better screenplay and story. Michael Bay is a talented filmmaker. The “Bad Boy” films and “Pain & Gain” are entertaining films, I just wish he could have made one exceptional “Transformer’s” film. The first one is fun, but it’s not a great film. With a franchise as global as “Transformers,” Bay had a lot of toys in the toybox to work and create from. Perhaps, he still has a great Transformers film in him, but I think he’s handed the franchise off to younger directors. Paramount, who owns the rights to the Transformers franchise, will never stop making films about Autobots and Decepticons.
“Fallen” is one of the best third-person shooter games I’ve ever played. There are villains I didn’t think I was capable of defeating, and I like that in a game.
If you were impressed with Pixeljunkie’s playable mechanical LEGO Street Fighter II arcade machine, then there is no doubt you will be fully gobsmacked by Ginger Of Mods’ WiiBoy Color creation – a portable Wii, which is similar in size to the Game Boy Color!
This creation took 9 months of meticulous work, from printing the shell, to fitting all of the components, like the motherboard and display, resulting in the superb and unique WiiBoy Color!
The ‘Shut up and take my money’ meme would be a massive understatement right about now!
source: Ginger of Mods
I can’t believe that we (myself and Ms. ausretrogamer) have never appeared together on a podcast! Well, I am here to tell you that we finally made our debut together in guest speaking on episode 275 of the Vertical Hold podcast!
The topic of discussion was how we were passing the time and keeping our sanity in this worldwide pandemic. We delve into the midst of nostalgia and discuss all things gaming, from retro and modern, pinball, arcade, board games to the Commodore 64, SNES, RetroPie and Nintendo’s Wii! Oh yeah, Double Dragon and Zelda came up in conversation too 😉
Thank you to Alex Kidman and Adam Turner for having us on their brilliant weekly Vertical Hold podcast, we had a blast!
So how much storage space would it take to store every Nintendo video game (from the stable of their major consoles) that can be emulated?
Don’t worry about trying to work out the answer, as Reddit user, RHYTHM_GMZ, has already done all the hard work for us.
You’ll need roughly 7.53TB (yep, that’s TERABYTES!) of space to be able to emulate every darn Nintendo video game! With the Wii making up 6.56TB of the 7.53TB total, you may want to know the breakdown of the rest of the Nintendo game libraries, so here you go:
For those of you that prefer to visualise these figures, we have you covered – see below!
NOTE: Games libraries based on the uncompressed NTSC versions
[story source: RHYTHM_GMZ via Reddit]
Darn this Wireless Game Boy controller is ingenious!
In a nutshell, InsideGadgets’ Alex Iannuzzi has created a custom Game Boy (GB) TX cartridge which transforms the original Game Boy into a wireless gamepad that can be used on any device that accepts USB HID input, like a PC or Raspberry Pi (via a USB receiver). Oh yeah, there are receivers for the GameCube, Wii and SNES too – which is just awesome!
The GB TX cartridge works with Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Colour, Game Boy Advance, and Game Boy Advance SP handhelds (Ed: there is also a GBA TX cart that works on the Micro, DS and DS Lite). The best part is that you don’t have to hack or upgrade the original Game Boy or the other GBA hardware to make this all work. Alex has done the hard work for your by designing and building the TX cartridges without the need to hack your precious Nintendo handhelds.
For more details or to place your order, go to InsideGadgets now. If you fancy yourself as a DIY guru and you want to have a crack at building one of these yourself, you are far braver than us, so go here.
image source: InsideGadgets
[story source: technabob]
